New Disease, move aside COVID

@f00l black death had the advantage of an intermediary animal too carrying virus from patient to patient.

Unless that’s the case with Kazakhstan (pneumonia would think is airborne) then that virus/bacteria/fungus wouldn’t have that same option to spread.

Obviously some mosquito viruses are very deadly and spread quickly and easily too. It’s the ones that pass direct from human to human (which I had made assumption, perhaps prematurely, that this is) that tend to be contained easy if they’re more deadly.

Ebola outbreaks have raged for months in countries without the same medical resources and have always been contained before going pandemic. Been nasty to the countries that had them but fortunately for us, never spread globally.

@OnionSoup

According to Wikipedia, the Black Death likely traveled on rats (rat fleas); on humans (human fleas); and as carried airborne, by ordinary respiration.

/giphy dread

@ELUNO Woooo!

@mike808

The medical people I know think that China has been deliberately lying, and suppressing data, from the start, and still handles info this way.

@mike808 Does every comment from you always have to circle back to Trump? I mean, dude, you’ve made your point ad nauseam. You are very strongly opposed to Donald Trump. We got it.

@f00l I’m not contesting that they aren’t. I’m saying that they aren’t hesitating to take advantage of the Resident’s ineptitude on the world stage.

@ruouttaurmind So you support the Resident’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the WHO, in the middle of the pandemic, and in the context of another pandemic on the horizon?

Wow. You can polish that turd all you want.
When the United States had a real President. From Missouri.
/image Truman The buck stops here.

This is @mike808 making stuff up and putting words in my mouth. Well, fingers I guess in this case.

@ruouttaurmind maybe I am crazy, but I didn’t get that from your post at all!

@mike808

China is doing all they can to “move” on the world with expansionist plans for pushing their power right now, esp with the US ineffective due to our political situation to which you refer, and to the US and Europe not co-operating on policy.

Including the recent crackdowns and legal changes in HK. If the US weren’t a mess due to our current ineffective and chaotic leadership, if the US and Europe weren’t at odds, if the US still had the respect we are busy throwing away every day, I doubt China would have been nearly so aggressive.

None of our recent presidents or admins have handled China well, but our current catastrophic internal politics means that the entire world is fair game for their ambition.

Plus other domestic political policies of ours (particularly in regard to our k-12 snd higher ed, and our squeezed middle classes) has resulted in their continuing to make tech and scientific gains compared to us even well beyond those gains coming from intellectual property theft.

For the past 25-30 years the US and Europe have given them every opportunity to make gains in becoming the eventual reigning tech and scientific power. Which will result in their becoming the reigning military and IT power also, eventually.

Their internal repression might put a damper in these gains to a degree, but do not negate the gains.

The idiots who thought it was ok not to seriously fund our K-12 and college education, and thought it was ok to slogan-monger about trickle-down economics and the like, rather than working to create a nation that could go forward effectively in a dangerous world, have bought themselves a China that’s so powerful that it might be nearly to late to try to regain a possibility if our having long-term future tech, Econ, and power parity with them.

/rant off

: (

Re your response to @ruouttaurmind

Wtf? Another incredible misreading of what someone said, and another over the top and unjustified personal response. He implied nothing of the sort.

Are you stressed out or what?

What’s the point of undercutting yourself?

Agree re Truman.

But that’s not a justifiable response to @ruouttaurmind’s comment.

He meant that you sound like a “broken record”. And that your responses seem to be to words no one said and implications no one made.

@f00l
I called out Trump for being an asshole by withdrawing from the WHO, just as China makes moves internationally to look more like it has this shit under control than our shit-for-brains President.

And outta says “All of that is just fine by me. You’re just mad at Trump.” Maybe if Trump wasn’t such a total douchebag POTUS, I would cut him some slack. I didn’t say what I said about Trump just because he’s Trump. I said it because of his pervasive and continuous actions since taking office are and have been harming Americans and causing suffering, and will continue to do so long after he has left 1600. If outta can’t see that, and has no objection to it, then I could care less that what they object to is that I do. As long as Trump continues to demonstrate callous contempt towards the people he is supposed to be serving - all of us, not just the rich old white guys - I will bring it up. If outta wants me to stop, I’ll stop when Trump stops destroying America.

On China we agree. Sure they are probably lying about a lot of things. Our president doesn’t have any moral high ground on that either, being a lying sack himself. What matters is that China seems to have this pandemic under control, and we don’t.

So this next pandemic brewing has zero chance of the US coming out as a world leader in handling devastating crises both global and internal. And every chance of China doing exactly that, and transparency or truthfulness doesn’t matter when it is too late to unfuck it up. Just ask Florida and Texas about that.

@f00l @douchebag808 @ruouttaurmind
So, how does one mute a broken record, who wastes a lot of space and bandwidth, on meh.com? A lot of other sites have a mute option on any particular poster.

@mike808 You really are out of touch with reality. I say this not because of your views on POTUS or his actions. I have no standing to deny anyone their opinion on anything they deem worthy of having an opinion on. No, I say you’re out of touch with reality because somehow you twisted this:

I mean, dude, you’ve made your point ad nauseam. You are very strongly opposed to Donald Trump. We got it.

Into this:

outta says “All of that is just fine by me. You’re just mad at Trump.”

At what point, precisely, did I even hint “all of that is just fine by me.”?

I thank you in advance for helping me understand how you got to that conclusion. But honestly, I’m very confident you have absolutely no clue what my position is RE: POTUS and WHO.

@mike808 If you were to compromise and be tastefully subtle, maybe a bit terse, you’d only be “guy who won’t shut up about Trump”. I’m a little worried you’re coming off as unhinged. People who might not have a great grasp of American politics probably wouldn’t be led toward the light by your comments.

I can’t blame you though. I do know from catharsis.

I’ve yet to get over the realization that most Americans’ judgement is so poor, and political options so limited (the situation is even worse when you account for Democratic voters who fell on the blue side by cultural or ideological happenstance – they’d absolutely vote for the hypothesized Donald Smurf). It’s less surprising that Trump’s so hostile to his own country.

@OnionSoup drew on you with sunscreen while you were asleep.

@ruouttaurmind

I have no standing to deny anyone their opinion on anything they deem worthy of having an opinion on.

And yet you attempted to do exactly that through attempted shaming and feigned public interest in my well-being. Sorry, your virtue signaling is full of bullshit when you used the royal “we”.

Your “Are you OK?” schtick is just that - vapid schtick. I am fine, thank you. I take offense at your premise, and that was the real intention in your “question”, not any actual concern. Are you projecting? Are you OK?

@InnocuousFarmer

voters who fell on the blue side by cultural or ideological happenstance

It’s not just a “blue side” thing. The “red side” has its own equivalent to the Bernie progressives and Jill Steins in the form of the Never Trumpers and The Lincoln Project that will find themselves “holding their noses” and voting for Biden in November. Or doing so out of buyer’s remorse for failing to Drain the Swamp and realizing out the Republican party is now forever politically bound to enabling, defending, and protecting a corrupt, racist, misogynist, narcissistic, mendacious, sociopath party leader to the bitter end in order to save their own power.

@mike808 I think you misunderstand my point. I was saying the capacity for Trumpiness is not uniquely Republican (remember crowds chanting “four more years” for Obama?).

Then, I’m not sure I understand your reply, either.

@mike808 I’m glad you wouldn’t let truth get in the way of a good rant. That would be boring. And relevant. We can’t have that, can we?

And yet you attempted to do exactly that through attempted shaming and feigned public interest in my well-being.

Um, no. Not even close. This topic was in no way politically related. I am simply calling you out for your persistent hijacking of threads and topics to further your own agenda. There are dozens of other topics within this forum where politics is the subject, hundreds of other forums which are established specifically for such discussions. In this forum you continuously pollute unrelated topics and threads with your political rhetoric. Others have called you out for this more than a few times. Hence the “royal we” you’re accuse me of. No, not a royal we, a “myself and others within this community” we.

feigned public interest in my well-being.

Your “Are you OK?” schtick is just that - vapid schtick.

Your replies might carry a bit more credence if you would stop attributing quotes and ideas to me which I did not write.

I’m over you. I originally came to this topic hoping to read discussions about the Kazakhstan mystery disease. Instead I foolishly allowed myself to enter a totally off-topic exchange with someone who cannot stay focused long enough to have an actual productive discussion.

It’s all yours boss. Run wild.

@mike808

Ok. You seem to want to do it. Stretch out peoples’ words, and twist them until they break, then claim the resulting mess is what they said or implied.

It isn’t. And it never will be, if you keep projecting too much or being so sloppy or whatever is going on w you.
/whatever

I don’t know why you would want to so thoroughly undercut either the “political logic” or the persuasive usefulness of your thoughts as expressed;
but if this is your chosen way in the world, go forth and receive not much interest or respect in return.

I’m sure the failure to convince or even generate much interest will be just because the people who read your words and go sigh are all so very arrogant and stupid and blind.
/Not.

Re the mention of “royal we” (in your response to @ruouttaurmind?)

So many intelligent and thoughtful people, many of whom are not far from you politically, many of whom have read you carefully over time, have publicly expressed similar reactions to your recent rants, that it’s not a “royal” we, as you claim, at all.
The “we” appears to be an apt assessment of a fair-portion-of-community-reader-response, as expressed over time.

Re “are you ok” and the potential offensiveness of q that to you:

Not what I intended - I intended neither arrogance not condescension. But If that’s your response - cool.

Perhaps I could have handled that better, had I thought how to do that.
Or perhaps you find that sort of interest inherently offensive.

Many people go a bit over the top under stress. So I asked.

And … if no one asks that of you anymore, because it’s been asked and responded to …

well:
that won’t stop people from wondering what’s wrong.

I’m hardly to blame for that last.

Anyone who consistently brings politics, let alone accuse-your-listerners politics, or brings gratuitous and pointless and unjustified personal jibes, into a conversation or forum while ignoring local social norms amd ignoring the local common tone and friendliness of the conversations at hand, is asking to be little listened to.

[Remember Churchill’s wilderness years, during which he, more-or-less alone among U.K. big-name politicians, railed about Germany, fascism, and Hitler?
He had the sense to know when to talk politics and when not to.
And he knew how (socially) to talk politics and policy.

So, result: just about everyone, including those who disagreed politically with him and thought him a war-mongering fanatic, wanted him around.
He was smart enough to be delightful company and lots of fun and very interesting. He never underestimated the power of charm. So, pretty much everyone, including the “Churchill haters”, wanted him to come to dinner or visit as a houseguest.]

(Not defending “all things Churchill” here; the man had terrible flaws and hideous colonialist, racist, sexist, classist beliefs, among other policy errors and sins; and had many flaws in his private life as well.)

[I’m just using his wilderness-years-social-conduct an an example. He did know how to “operate”, so to speak.
And, so, he was “socially desired”, and got himself listened to, a little at a time.]

Anyone who completely and consistently ignores social context and social tone when making a non-mathematical or non-engineering type argument
[exempting true, not figurative, “this-second-911-situations”]
is asking to be ignored.
(ie arguments re economics, policy, and politics are never mathematically rigorous; or aren’t, as far as I have seen, read, or heard of)

Anyone who does that ^ mentioned above consistently over time is asking to be shunned and/or pitied.
I doubt you want pity.
In that case, pls stop generating pity from others as a likely response.

Anyone who makes wild/unsupportable inferences about what someone else’s words allegedly mean is going to be thought of as out-of-whack, and possibly in need of a break, or of therapy.
(Recent inferences re which, I can’t think of another person whose thinking I respect, my having either read them or heard their speech, would agree with)

Social tone and social context matter greatly, if words are intended as persuasive or useful.

Not creating straw man enemies or unjustifiable opponents out of one’s audience also matters.

The thing is: we’ve all seen you in far better form than in this current degree of reactivity and hijacking, and so your words had far more reach then.

@OnionSoup totally did it.

@f00l @mike808 @ruouttaurmind
/giphy Godwin’s Law

@eonfifty @mike808 @ruouttaurmind

Ah yes. Was expecting that.

Esp since so in context.